Aleksandr Petrosyan

I discovered Aleksandr Petrosyan through an image shared on a friend’s social media page; the image showed a lone war veteran marching at the Victory day parade carrying a balloon and wiping a tear from his eye. It came with a caption, stating that he was the only surviving WWII veteran left, which is why he walked alone.

Not particularly interested in the content, the image still struck me; the wide angle used captured the crowd behind, giving context to the image but the photographer’s obviously close proximity to the soldier, showing such emotion took me aback slightly. I felt a need to learn more about this photographer.

A quick Google search led me to the photographer’s website. There I found a mine of that same feeling evoked from the first image; the wide angles and harsh editing brought about feelings of frustration and in some, almost repulsion. I could see similarities to the style of Bruce Gilden but with more raw emotion and much more grit. Knowing that this was the kind of feeling I would like to evoke in my up and coming assignment, I searched the website for more urban, maybe architectural images. Petrosyan’s website is split into various short stories; my first port of call was ‘The Tram Depot’.

Here I found exactly what I was looking for; that same high contrast, wide angled, in your face style was present bringing such an uncomfortable reality to his images. Even though the content appeared normal and everyday, somehow the images left an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach; I dream of creating images with such power.

Browsing Petrosyan’s ‘Hospital’ collection, I noticed that many of the images were taken with a wide angled lens, using a shallow depth of field and a low perspective. No wonder they appealed to me, it’s my favourite way to shoot; the reason I’ve just bought a 35mm F2 prime lens and I’m well known for lying on the floor taking photos. The photographer’s harsh editing style flirts with cheap and over processed but then kicks it to the curb and leaves the relationship with something very real and evocative.

A dip into the photographer’s biography shows that he has won many awards for his work over the last decade and has appeared in such publications as Russian Reporter and National Geographic. Petrosyan is admired for portraying both the beauty and the grotesque in his subjects while successfully presenting the three-dimensional. His ability to capture infinite levels of reality in a single image enables him to push the limits of his environment, making the ordinary appear extraordinary. Petrosyan currently works as staff photographer for ‘Kommersant’, a nationally distributed Russian newspaper, mostly devoted to politics and business.